Hello and Welcome!

You’ve landed on the blog of Wooden Horse Publishing.  We’re in beta, so things are still a little bare around here.

Wooden Horse publishes an informative directory of magazines called…what else, the Magazines Database.  There you’ll find over 2,000 US and Canadian consumer and trade magazines, complete with contact information, reader demographics, writer’s guidelines and editorial calendars.  Check it out if you’re a PR professional, freelance writer, photographer, or entrepreneur doing your own publicity.

The information you see here come from our daily work with magazines.  We share it to help keep our fellow small business owners aware of new opportunities in the editorial side of the magazine industry.  Since much of the information migrates into our Database, we hope to demonstrate that our data is in-depth and up-to-date.  We hope it encourages you to consider our services.

We’re really glad you came,

Meg and staff

One More Magazine Is Returning to Print

FINE BOOKS & COLLECTIONS COMPENDIUM is returning to print after a year and a half hiatus.  The magazine, which targets collectors of rare and collectible books, stopped publication of its bi-monthly edition in November 2008 to go electronic with a monthly e-letter and weekly blog.

After a successful November 2009 print edition, publisher Journalistic Inc decided to resume printing on a quarterly basis in April 2010.  “We do think print has a certain charm and value that is impossible to obtain online,” said associate publisher Kim Draper in a press release.

The print edition will be a combination of the best online articles and new features, columns and resources.  Tips on map and manuscript collecting, information on fine presses and art will also be included.  An annual directory of booksellers will continue to be printed with a new guide to classes, societies, fairs, and symposiums related to book collecting.  The popular monthly e-letter and blog will continue to be the main source of information.

The online editor, Rebecca Barry, rebecca@finebooksmagazine.com, will also serve as the print editor.

Wooden Horse Monday Round-Up

PENNSYLVANIA HOMESCHOOLERS will go online-only according to a note on the website at http://www.pahomeschoolers.com/post3001.shtml…

AMERICAN IDOL magazine will return to cover season 9 of the popular TV show.  Four issues will be printed and distributed by Fremantle Media Enterprises and Source Interlink Media with the first appearing March 26…

Wooden Horse Friday Round-Up

Publisher Conde Nast Publications is officially dropping the “Publications” from its name.  Spokesperson Maurie Perl said: “It’s a more coordinated push to use the new logo without the ‘Publications.’  Suffice it to say, we will now be known as Condé Nast.”…

EWEEK has announced the exit of chief technology analyst Jim Rapoza…

WomansDay.com has a new assistant editor, Olivia Putnal, oputnal@hfmus.com…

THE DAILY RECORD, a Baltimore business magazine, has a new online managing editor, Robert Terry, rob.terry@mddailyrecord.com…

FINE BOOKS & COLLECTIONS will return to print as a quarterly.  Rebecca Rego Barry is editor…

HEALTH DATA MANAGEMENT has a new editor-in-chief, Greg Gillespie, greg.gillespie@sourcemedia.com, for the second time…

Publisher Reader’s Digest Association is not yet stepping out of bankruptcy protection.  UK has not approved the operating plan…

Next Issue Media, the digital publishing initiative of Conde Nast, Hearst, Meredith, News Corporation and Time Inc, has launched a blog at http://nextissuemedia.wordpress.com. It “will serve as a place where we comment on developments in the eReading space and provide updates [on the initiative.]“…

WORKING MOTHER will start featuring celebrity and high-profile moms on the cover starting with the February/March issue.  Well-known mothers from sports, celebrity and television, among other areas, will be featured and talk about the challenges of raising children in the midst of a busy career.  Olympic gold medal skater Kristi Yamaguchi will be the first…

PINK has lost website editor Taylor Mallory…

INC magazine is going virtual.  In the month of February editorial staffers will work from home and blog about it along with advice and tips from experts.  The April print issue “we’ll publish a definitive piece on virtual work – a look at pros and cons of running a highly-dispersed team (namely, ours), plus, tips on how to work virtually that any start-up or small business can use.”…

TIME has a new arts editor, Tim Morrison, tim_morrison@timemagazine.com…

Travel Magazine Expands Content, Increases Frequency

PASSPORT is one of the few print magazines which have increased its print frequency.  The magazine will grow from 8 issues per year to 9 and will still publish its annual “Weddings and Honeymoon” issue in May.

Publisher Dan Turthill attributes the increase to more efficient marketing, resulting in increased advertising revenue and magazine sales.  Ad revenue grew by a whopping 32% last year and single copy sales increased by 17%.

Marketing strategies include discontinuing insert cards and gaining subscribers only by phone and online.  Turthill says, “It’s been extremely efficient that way.”  He also credits in-store marketing campaigns at book stores and prospecting at various travel and gay pride events, in addition to its own annual show in New York City.  These contributed to a 4% increase in response.  The website includes the popular Passport TV online, which now will increase the output to two videos per month, some of which will include video tours given by celebrities.

The print magazine currently has 72,000 subscribers and focuses on travel for the gay community, yet bills itself as “hetero-friendly gay travel magazine,” acknowledging that nearly 3% of its subscribers are heterosexual.  The editor is Robert Adams, editor@passportmagazine.net

New California Mag for Bonnier

HOME LOS ANGELES, set to launch in April 2010, is the newest addition to the Bonnier Corporation stable.  Geared towards sophisticated readers interested in homes and “the built environment,” the quarterly magazine will be offered in Los Angeles and surrounding areas.

It will cover a wide range of related topics including architecture, design, art, culture, history, urban planning, ecology, preservation, real estate, and landscape, as well as consumer advice on design, renovation and redecorating. Other features will include travel pieces on the history of local neighborhoods and highlighting their restaurants, design features and attractions, as well as featured cities with distinct architecture and design.

Circulation is estimated to be 45,000 and their website is already up and running.  Beth Dunlop, beth.dunlop@bonniercorp.com, will be the editor, the same position she holds at sister publications HOME FORT LAUDERDALE and HOME MIAMI.  Other staff has not been announced.

Magazine Industry Really Missed This One

Books did it.

Newspapers did it.

Magazines didn’t.

And publishers pay how many hundreds of thousands of dollars to Magazine Publishers of America to show that magazines are still very much a part of today’s advertising media mix?

Harry McCracken, former editor-in-chief of PC WORLD and blogger at technologizer.com, stated it best in an article on foliomag.com:

“As I sat in the audience at the event, I slowly figured out that it wouldn’t provide a ready-made happy ending for magazine publishers.  Apple did reveal that the gizmo includes an e-book reader, iBooks – but as the name suggests, that software is meant for books, not periodicals.  It also let the New York Times show off a handsome app for reading that paper.  But the only magazine that came up during the event was TIME* – and that was when Jobs showed how good its Web site looked in the iPad’s Safari browser.  It mostly served as a reminder that it’s not entirely clear why many consumers would choose to pay for digital magazines when the same content is available on the Web for free.”

It sounds like the mega-hyped introduction of Apple’s iPad tablet was something of a lost opportunity for magazines.  Shouldn’t the industry do better if it wants to survive?

Sara Ohrvall, senior vice president of research and development for Swedish media company Bonnier, summed up the problem in the Wall Street Journal: “Either we have to package our products much differently, or we just lost the paid content game.”

Read about magazines and the iPad at:

Apple’s iPad: A Question for the Magazine Industry, Not an Answer [link: http://bit.ly/bx0vsU]

Publishers Ponder iPad’s Ad Implications [link: http://bit.ly/9nucgn]

Hearst-backed Skiff E-reader to Debut This Year [link: http://bit.ly/aeLruS]

Three Hard Questions for Print Publishers Drooling over the Apple Tablet; It’s Not Manna from Steve Jobs & Co Yet [link: http://bit.ly/aF3bQ8]

Apple iPad Charges at Kindle and Netbooks; Tablet Will Stir up Lots of Change, but Who Will Benefit?  [Link: http://bit.ly/9iFz38]

Pubs Flirt with Kindle but Don’t Carry a Torch; Amazon Reader Isn’t So Friendly to Biz Model, Yet Mags Sign up.  Here’s Why [link: http://bit.ly/dAb69r]

Wooden Horse Monday Round-Up

Canadian custom publisher Redwood Communications (CAA, LIFE & HOME, KRAFT FOOD & FAMILY) has changed its name to Totem Communications Group.  The company will remain a unit of Transcontinental Media….

STYLE AT HOME has a new editor-in-chief, Erin McLaughlin, mclaughlin@homeandcountry.ca…

1TO1 MAGAZINE has ended its print edition but will continue online.  The online magazine, which covers customer relations management and is geared toward CEOs, top managers, executives and other decision-makers, will launch in February…

US printer Quad/Graphics has acquired Canadian printer Worldcolor, formerly Quebecor, making the combination the second largest North American printer after Chicago-based RR Donnelley & Sons.  The deal was reportedly worth $1.3 billion.  Quad/Graphics’ prints ROLLING STONE and SPORTS ILLUSTRATED and Worldcolor’s clients include GQ and NEWSWEEK…

BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK has announced the acquisition of two new superstar editors: Former FORTUNE managing editor Eric Pooley and NEW YORK magazine editorial director Hugo Lindgren…

SHERMAN’S TRAVEL will be distributed with the national newspaper USA Today to selected US hotel rooms.  In the second half of 2010, the magazine will distribute 75,000 copies of its fall and winter editions, increasing total circulation 38% to almost 450,000…

VETERINARY TECHNICIAN and VETERINARY FORUM magazines have halted their print editions and are producing content online only.  The first online editions will launch in February…

MYBUSINESS will relaunch in March by a new owner, Imagination Publishing and a new top editor, Simona Covel…

PASSPORT will increase frequency from eight to nine issues per year, based on an encouraging 32% lift in ad revenue…

Publisher Reader’s Digest Association (READER’S DIGEST, EVERYDAY WITH RACHAEL RAY, TASTE OF HOME) will have emerged from bankruptcy on Monday after having lightened its debt load to $525 million from $2.2 billion.  However, per nypost.com, “S&P is giving the new debt a rather lackluster B rating,” partially because of the “outmoded nature of the Reader’s Digest flagship magazine.”…

SAN JOSE magazine, folded in 2008, is scheduled to be relaunched in early 2010 by new owner Ziyak Media Group (BERKSHIRE LIVING) and with a circulation of 30,000.  The magazine is undergoing an extensive redesign…

SCHOLASTIC PARENT & CHILD is adding celebrity covers and celebrity content from such well-known experts as financial guru Suze Orman and new talk show host and the director of the Cardiovascular Institute and Complementary Medicine Program at New York Presbyterian Hospital, Mehmet Oz MD, aka Dr Oz…

Wooden Horse Friday Round-Up

HEALTHCARE INFORMATICS has a new editor-in-chief, Mark Hagland, mhagland@aol.com. He replaces Anthony Guerra…

TRADERS MAGAZINE has a new senior writer, John D’Antona, john.d’antona@sourcemedia.com, who covers institutional equities trading…

ART ON PAPER will close.  The “current financial environment” is responsible, according to co-publishers Shelly Bancroft and Peter Nesbett.  The magazine targeted printed-matter fans, covering limited-editions, artists’ books, and other works on paper in a variety of mediums…

SEATTLE BRIDE has a new editor, Sally Farhat Kassab, sally.kassab@tigeroak.com…

OREGON BRIDE has a new editor, Liz Hummer, liz.hummer@tigeroak.com…

POCONO BUSINESS JOURNAL will cease operation with its February issue.  “Current economic climate” blamed…

SAN FRANCISCO BRIDES and FRONT DESK SAN FRANCISCO have a new editor-in-chief, Robin Wilkey, rwilkey@modernluxury.com…

AV TECHNOLOGY has a new managing editor, Margot Douaihy, mdouaihy@nbmedia.com…

AV TECHNOLOGY has a new editorial director, Kevin Hogan…

AV TECHNOLOGY has announced the exit of editor Mark Mayfield…

Newsweek tries to stem the red ink with smaller – but well heeled – demographics

NEWSWEEK expects to ‘operate less in the red’ in 2010 and hope for profitability in 2011, according to Thomas Ascheim, chief executive of Newsweek.

The magazine has switched from chasing high circulation to a focus on a smaller, but more lucrative, higher-income readership that appeals more to advertisers.  In addition, Newsweek lowered its rate base (the minimum circulation promised to advertisers.)  In 2008-2009, the rate base was dropped in increments from 3.1 million to 1.9 million and this month it was planned to be further lowered to 1.5 million.

The publisher, The Post Company, has reported that its magazine division (primarily comprised of Newsweek) suffered a $4.3 million loss in third-quarter 2009 operating costs following $25 million lost in the first half of the year.  “It’s been a disgusting economy, in case nobody else noticed,” Ascheim said.

Canada’s Number One Magazine Shakes Things Up

CHATELAINE, the flagship magazine of Canadian conglomerate Rogers Communications, has created a new editorial team.  Jane Francisco will replace Maryam Sanati as the editor-in-chief.  Sanati left the company last week.  Francisco will be the fifth editor to hold the position in the past five years.

Jane Francisco

An 18-year veteran of Canadian publishing, Francisco recently held the position of editor-in-chief for STYLE AT HOME magazine, published by Transcontinental.  She also served as executive editor for the St Joseph Lifestyles Group, as well as being the founding editor-in-chief for its now-defunct WISH magazines.

As part of the shift, Rogers expanded several other key roles.  CHATELAINE publisher Kerry Mitchell will offer more input at GLOW and TODAY’S PARENT.  Dianne de Fenoyl, managing editor at Maclean will become CHATELAINE’s editorial director.  Ken Whyte, publisher and editor-in-chief of Maclean’s as well as publisher of Canadian Business, Profit and Moneysense will also be joining the team.

Considered one of Canada’s top magazines, CHATELAINE has a paid circulation of 553,000 and a total revenue of $56.5-million in 2008, a year-over-year decline of 4.54%.